


Friendly Fire

by HitanTenshi



Series: Solavellan Short Stories [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Teasing, the trope of trying to make the boyfriend jealous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HitanTenshi/pseuds/HitanTenshi
Summary: Zeale gets the idea Solas wasn't being completely honest with her last time and decides to do something about that.





	Friendly Fire

**Author's Note:**

> See the author's note at the beginning of https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491283 for more info on Zeale. Turns out, one drabble wasn't enough to work through my feelings about this relationships's unresolved tension, so have another! I've written one more that follows this, and I should be posting it in the near future.

Zeale had believed Solas when he’d said he wasn’t ready to take their relationship to the next stage. She’d kept the thought of respecting his limits a constant reminder, so as not to give in to her own, much more involved ideas.

So why does she keep catching him wearing this look of deep longing when they’re together?

To confirm that she isn’t just imagining something she wants to see, assistance is necessary.

“Do I look like an expert on pining?” Varric quips.

“You’re forgetting I’ve seen you and Bianca in the same room.”

“…Point taken.” Varric scratches under his chin in thought. “Sure, I’ve seen Chuckles with that kinda look. Elf has some serious self-restraint, that’s all I’ll say.”

Because three opinions are better than one, Zeale confers with more of her usual accomplices.

“Oh, definitely,” says Dorian. “I have a balcony seat to the opera of your little romance. I know the body language of a man who wants desperately to embrace the one he loves.”

“It’s like Oily-Mustache says,” Sera jumps in. “Soulless can barely keep his friggin’ hands off you, yeah? Can’t blame him.”

“My mustache is not oily, Sera — it’s well-groomed.”

“It’s all the same to me, Doornail. Beards, men — ew, no thanks.”

“I’ll make no quarrel about that. No men for you means more for me.”

“Likewise, but in reverse. And converse. And inverse. Shit, I’ve been around our fluffy ambassador for too long. I’m gettin’ infected with vocabulary.”

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Zeale enunciates with just enough shortness of temper to have both her friends hopping to.

“So sorry, my dear.”

“Yeah, what he said. Can I call you _my dear_? Would that make Soulless jealous? Should we send him into a jealous rage?”

“I would pay good money to see Solas in a jealous rage,” Dorian muses.

“Right? Pull the trousers right off his stupid pride.”

“And hopefully pull the trousers off _him_ as well.”

“Brilliant.”

“Seriously,” Zeale interjects, “I can’t keep up with you two.”

They share a conspiratorial look before Dorian explains. “Sera is suggesting that we construe a situation in which Solas will be much more likely give in to his obvious desires.”

“And you think he won’t see through a plot like that?”

“Even if he does,” Dorian points out, “should all go well, he may not care.”

“He’ll be too busy eating honey from your—”

“Too much, Sera,” Dorian cuts off her lurid description.

She sticks her tongue out at him. “Well then, if we’re gonna cook an egg, we should get crackin’, yeah?”

A few more mischievous whispers later, Sera makes the first move by ambling into Solas’s study.

“Solas. Hey. Hey, Solace. Soulless. Hey, So-So-Lass.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do than pester me with childish name-calling, Sera?”

“Not really. But, hey, Zeale and I are gonna spar, yeah? You should be there.”

“Why is my presence necessary?”

“Necessary?” Sera snorts and turns to where Zeale awaits the outcome of the conversation. “He thinks he’s necessary.”

Which he is, but Zeale plays along and merely shrugs.

“Get to the point, Sera,” Solas prods.

“You’re good at patchin’ up, right? We’re gonna be sparrin’ with knives.”

That gets his attention. “You are not proficient with knives, if my memory serves.”

“Your memory can serve itself on a silver platter, egghead, but yeah. Who knows what could happen without somebody there to patch up…”

Solas stares at her, hard. It’s obvious that he’s detected some scheme in the web of her words — they’ll just have to hope he hasn’t identified its shape.

“If you insist,” he says at last, his gaze drifting toward Zeale with a single raised eyebrow.

She just shrugs again.

Sera finds them a nice little corner of the outer courtyard (one Dorian has taken careful pains to clear of bystanders beforehand). Solas quickly settles on some of the rubble yet to be cleared away after the most recent round of construction and opens a book, apparently intent on being uninterested.

“How exactly is this going to play out?” Zeale whispers as she hands over one of her dual-bladed daggers for Sera’s use.

“Just follow along, foolie,” is all the reply she gets. Plus a wink.

A moment later, Zeale has plenty to follow. Sera may not be proficient with knives, but she is proficient at getting where she needs to be one step ahead of her opponent. With sporadic cries of “Tag, you’re it!” she darts between Zeale’s strikes like a gust of air, only becoming solid when she makes contact with Zeale’s momentary weak spots. Which Zeale herself is surprised to learn she _has_ even as Sera exploits them.

Most enemies would go for the small of the back or under the ribs. Sera, however, picks targets like the earlobe. And rather than her blade, she uses little puffs of air. The unorthodox method catches Zeale so off-guard that she often makes a startled sound before she’s even realized it.

By five minutes in, Sera is cackling. She takes a step out of Zeale’s swing and tilts her head to one side. “You okay, Your Worship?” she teases. “You look a bit hot under the collar.”

“No thanks to you,” Zeale instinctively retorts.

“Gotta make it fun, don’t we? Here I’ve got you all to myself, yeah?”

Zeale glances in Solas’s direction _just before_ the idiot returns his gaze to his book.

“Not all.”

“Oh, boo. Forget Soulless for two seconds. I’m loads more fun, yeah? Round Two!”

This time, Sera gets more daring. It starts with a finger or two running down Zeale’s neck or up her side, crescendoing into a veritable wrestling match. By the time either of them can catch their breath, Sera has Zeale pinned face down, arms behind her back.

“Ready to give up?” Sera jeers, and her leg just has to brush _just so_ between Zeale’s. “Unless you’d rather see what I can do in Round Three, yeah?”

The snapping shut of a book is signal enough.

“Sera.” The authority in Solas’s voice sends an actual shiver up Zeale’s spine. “If you would be so kind as to release the Inquisitor?”

Whether she’s picked up on the warning or not, Sera goads him. “Make me.”

With two strides and a flick of a finger, Solas has closed the distance between them and pried Sera off with magical force. After dropping her on her rump, he enunciates, “Be grateful I did not fling you across the courtyard.”

“Ooh, scary.”

Solas has already switched to ignoring Sera’s existence. “Inquisitor,” and he offers a hand to Zeale.

“You’re no laughs, you are,” Sera whines as she picks herself off the ground. “Oh, well. See you later, Your Worshipfulness. Been fun, yeah?” And she saunters away.

Once Zeale is on eye-level with Solas, she can fully make out his expression. _Jealous rage_ would sell it short.

“Was that intentional?” he asks, still in that cold tone.

Not one to be intimidated, Zeale snaps, “So what if it was?”

“Have I done something to anger you?”

“No,” though that isn’t entirely true.

“Are you unsatisfied with something?”

Zeale finds she can’t lie about that one, so she keeps silent. A cue Solas takes.

“You are.” A pause in which he seems to be gathering his thoughts. “What is so much of a problem that you can’t talk to me about it? Is using Sera to… to _bait_ me really necessary?”

His accusation stoke the fires of Zeale’s more acerbic tendencies. “Talk to you? Sure, except for how I’m pretty sure you’ve been lying to me.”

Panic crosses Solas’s face — a panic that seems vastly disproportionate to the subject matter. It so shocks Zeale that she doesn’t seize the chance to comment on it before Solas schools his expression into something more restrained. “What are you talking about?” he asks carefully.

“I’m…” The lingering image of the whites of Solas’s frightened eyes is difficult to shake. She continues to stare into his face, as if doing so will reveal the reason behind his momentary terror. As she does so, however, she finds something else to note, something that ties back to the original purpose of this confrontation. “I’m talking about how I can barely even make out your irises right now.”

Solas says nothing, but his brows inch closers together.

“How you’re all red in the face, Messere Intellectual Romantic. You’re breathing so heavily, someone might think _you’d_ just fought Sera, not me.”

Solas opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“Saying you _can’t_ when I’m seeing proof that you _can_ right in front of me? Yeah, I’d call that a lie. So, to use your own words: what is so much of a problem that you can’t talk to me about it? This isn’t about _can’t_ — it’s about _won’t_. So why won’t you?”

“Vhenan, I… You must understand.”

“Must I?” And anger truly is getting the better of her now. “How _must_ I understand? How can I _possibly_ guess what’s holding you back when it’s so obvious that you want this — want _us_ — that at least half of the inner circle has noticed by now! Varric probably has a ledger dedicated to keeping track of bets for all of Skyhold as to will-we, won’t-we!”

Solas takes a step back, his face difficult to read. Zeale doesn’t let him get far. She grabs his collar and hauls him in until they’re nose to nose.

“I do want to understand. But first, you have to stop running from me.”

If Solas truly wanted to flee, he could. Zeale knows that. So when he hasn’t done so after several tense breaths, she takes a chance and kisses him. Rage and frustration provide ample fuel, and the heat softens Solas’s posture. At first, he only feeds a little into the kiss, like he’s afraid she’ll bite him. Maybe she will. By the time his hesitance melts away entirely, his arms have enfolded her, eliminating any space between them. She can practically taste his desperation, his thirst for _more_ that rivals her own. How could he ever have claimed that he doesn’t want this?

But just when she thinks he’s about to do something beautifully out of character like wrap her legs around his hips and pin her to the nearest wall, he breaks away — panting and shaking, hiding his face from her by turning the opposite way.

“I—” he gasps, “I can’t.”

Letdown hits Zeale in the gut with the force of a giant’s club, fury quick on its heels. She’s about to throw some _choice_ words at him when he turns back around to meet her gaze. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was in pain.

“I have my reasons,” he says.

“And you can’t even tell me what those reasons are?”

“It’s not the right—”

“—Time, I know. So what am I supposed to do with a cryptic answer like that?”

Solas searches the sky, worrying at his lips.

“All I can ask you to do with that answer is trust me.”

“Trust you, when you won’t trust me?”

“It’s because I trust the depth and verity of your… feelings… that I have my reasons for restraining myself.”

“So, you’re fine with cheating yourself of a perfectly available happiness?”

“Not _fine_ with it, no. But you know as well as I do that some causes must take precedence over… personal desires. Because, if it will help you bear this to hear it: yes, I do… I do desire you. But there are things that must be done.”

“Will my destroying Corypheus sooner rather than later make any difference?”

“…Yes. It will make all the difference.”

Zeale gives Solas one more assessing scan, noting the distance he’s placed between them. “…So, maybe I was a bit of a bully, trying to trick you into giving in.”

“Maybe. It’s understandable why my reluctance frustrates you.”

“Are you going to avoid all contact with me now?”

The ghost of a smile crosses Solas’s face. “I have more strength of will than that.” As proof, he steps closer, even cups the nape of her neck and plants a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Unless, of course, the temptation will be too much for _you_?”

Oh. Oh, it’s on. Solas can’t just drop a gauntlet like that and expect her not to snatch it up. “Of course not. We’ll see who has more strength of will.”

“Suddenly I’m very concerned about what you might be plotting.”

“You’ll never see it coming.”

Solas chuckles softly. The flush has left his face, and his eyes are clear. “I do love you, vhenan.”

“Yeah…” She busses his cheek, as sweet as she can manage.

That doesn’t stop her from swatting his ass and muttering, “bitch,” as she stomps away.

Behind her, she suddenly hears a clamor of several familiar voices.

“I told you he had too much self-restraint for this to work,” says Varric. “Pay up, Sparkler.”

“You, ser, are a con artist,” Dorian laments. “Oh well. The opera continues, I suppose.”

“Soulless, you dim-witted, soft-boiled egg!” Sera hollers. “If you don’t get a bloody move-on, I will!”

The last bit Zeale makes out is Solas addressing the trio of mischief-makers with a tired, “Someday, I really am going to kill all of you.”

  
  



End file.
